


And God Knows (It's The Only Way To Heal Now)

by auroreanrave



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff, M/M, Pack Building, Pack Feels, Past Trauma (Non Explicit), Post-Season/Series 05 Finale, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-18
Updated: 2016-03-18
Packaged: 2018-05-27 08:56:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6277978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auroreanrave/pseuds/auroreanrave
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Following his possession by The Beast, Mason finds himself visited by his Alpha, as the Pack and Beacon Hills begin to recover from the latest supernatural menance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And God Knows (It's The Only Way To Heal Now)

**Author's Note:**

> So, this fic was basically born out of watching the TW S5 finale and being, in order of priority, excited that they saved Mason, impressed that they actually got rid of actual trash Theo, and that the season ended on an upbeat note. I really wanted to explore the Scott/Mason dynamic, given that the two of them are basically the pure cinnamon rolls of this world, and that they both share a desire to include everyone and look after everyone. This fluffy, recovery-based, 'bringing the band back together' AU is the result of these musings.
> 
> Title comes from Ellie Goulding's 'My Blood'.

* * *

 

After the Nemeton, after the Dread Doctors, after Theo, after the Beast, Mason wakes up on a miserably gray Saturday morning, deep bags under his eyes, to find Scott McCall perched on the highest branch of the tree outside his bedroom window.

Scott is dripping with the fine drizzle of rain that had started several hours ago (Mason had awoke from dreams of darkness and glowing eyes and choking, only to find the clock glowing 4:23 in green neon, and a light rain gathering steam outside; he had gone back to sleep minutes later). His jean jacket is sodden and his hair is plastered to his forehead.

Mason thinks for a moment, _you absolute handsome dork_ , and leans up to open the latch and let Scott inside.

"Thanks," Scott says, smiling despite his current 'drowned rat from a Nineties grunge band' aesthetic, and Mason manages a terse smile back.

"No problem. Can't have my Alpha getting wet."

Scott blinks, then smiles back. "How are you feeling?"

Mason shrugs, sitting back on his bed. His covers pool around his waist. He's tired; more than the bones-deep aching sleepiness he's felt when pulling an all-nighter or running around with Liam and Hayden and dealing with their supernatural shenanigans.

He feels washed-out. Not empty exactly, but as if he's spent a while losing himself, and his consciousness feels clean and bare, the edges of it tauter, as if he's settling back into it.

"Okay, I guess." Mason manages a smile. "I think I'm going to take it easy for a while. Sleep."

Scott nods approvingly, sitting down on the bed beside Mason. Mason can see the rivulets of rainwater on his face, the droplets clumping his eyelashes together. He smells fresh and overwhelmingly musky, the scent of freshly trodden mud and rain, a scent Mason associates strongly with werewolves. It's not exactly comforting - he prefers the smell of the clean laundry detergent and his mom's favourite vanilla cupcake Yankee Candles floating around the house - but it's not bad. "Good. That's good, Mason."

"The others?"

"What about them?" Scott replies.

"Are you... I don't know, checking in on them too? Lydia and Liam and Josh and Tracy..."

Scott waits a beat, then nods. "Sort of, yeah. But I wanted to make sure you were alright. What happened to you... you shouldn't have to deal with it alone."

"I didn't. Reminds me: I have to send Lydia one hell of a fruit basket." That makes Scott smile. "Or is she more of an edible arrangement kind of girl?"

"She's happy you're safe. That's more than some flowers or fruit. Besides," Scott nudges at Mason's shoulder with his own, "I don't think they have a cookie bouquet big enough to say 'Thanks for ridding me from a centuries-old hellbeast."

"It _is_ Beacon Hills." Mason counters, and they laugh.

"Kira?" Mason asks, moments later, when their comfortable silence has become strained a little, soundtracked by the steadily flowing rain outside. Mason'll need to close that window. "Is she - ?"

"Taking some time off." Scott says. "She's got stuff she needs to work on with with the Skinwalkers."

"Good. I worry about her." Mason sighs.

Scott smiles a little, briefly. "Me too." He rises from the bed, hand on Mason's shoulder, the heat of it pulsing through the thin cotton of Mason's tee shirt. "Anyway, I'll be back in a bit. If that's alright."

"Of course."

"I just need to arrange some stuff. Make sure Gerard stays off the radar. Keep Malia's mom under wraps in Eichen."

"You can stay for a bit if you want." Mason blushes. "I mean, it is raining."

Scott pauses for a moment, and then smiles disarmingly. "It's fine. Thanks. Raincheck?"

Before Mason can either blush furiously or groan aloud at the meterological pun his Alpha had just pulled off, Scott hops nimbly onto the windowsill and disappears from view, a quick wave the only acknowledgement of his departure.

Mason heads over to the window - Scott's gone already, and in the distance he can hear the sound of a motorbike puttering through the rain. Mason closes the window, and curls back up in bed.

He might be the former host of a demonic power, and he might be feeling like he's taken a vacation from his body, but Mason knows when he needs to do something. And so, with the curtains drawn, and the memory of Scott's lingering heat on his shoulder, he rolls onto his side and goes back to sleep.

 

* * *

 

 

"He keeps staring at you." Liam says, chewing on a mouthful of reheated vegetarian lasagne in the school cafeteria. "It's unnerving."

The three of them are clustered around a free table by the windows, and Mason has been too busy putting his assignments in order - French handed in, an excuse from Dr Deaton for his History and AP Bio assignments, and an English essay on "The Crucible" that is far from his finest and due next period - to notice Liam and Hayden's discussion.

"Who?" Mason asks distractedly, and only raises his eyes when Hayden prods him in the forearm with the remains of her bread roll.

"Scott. He keeps, like, looking over here."

Mason peers around, and meets Scott's gaze from across the cafeteria. He's sitting with the lacrosse team for once; normally he and Stiles and Lydia and everyone else commanders the big table in the middle for seniors, allowing Mason and Stiles to trade tips on dealing with supernatural beasties as humans, and allowing Mason to steal Josh's fries when he's not looking.

"Maybe he's looking at you guys. Or all three of us." Mason reasons, even though a little something in his belly tells him that's a lie.

"Nope. Definitely you." Liam says, turning back to his lasagne and mournfully considering Hayden's steak for a moment. "You didn't have sex with our Alpha did you?"

Mason nearly chokes on the sip of chocolate milk he'd been sipping and it's only through Hayden pulling his assignments towards her, that they avoid getting sprayed with a fine mist of cocoa-flavoured milk. "What?! No! I would - never, just, no - "

Once he's finished, Hayden slides the assignments back across the table, her eyebrow arched, and her smug smirk in place. "Whatever. He has a great ass, so good work."

Now it's both Mason and Liam's turn to gape in horror.

 

* * *

 

 

There's a knock at his door two nights later, Friday night, and Mason is just settling in with "Jupiter Ascending" and some coding practice Stiles had left them all. Stiles, apparently, used to rely on a kid called Danny for the pack's hacking needs, but when he moved back to Honolulu, the load transferred to Stiles, the only one of them with a basic knowledge of hacking. Stiles set up a system for them - everyone to learn basics and then some - but with everyone else engaged at the moment, Mason thinks he may as well be useful about his time.

Scott is at the door. Fortunately it's not raining this time, and when Mason slides it open, Scott smiles gratefully and brandishes a couple of bags of popcorn hopefully. "I heard from Liam that you were planning a movie night, and... I was hoping I could crash it?"

"Sure." Mason smiles. "More the merrier."

The Friday night movie sessions were a recent development of Liam's doing - normalcy in the face of lycanthropy, Mason thinks, but any excuse to drool over Vin Diesel and The Rock in fast cars. Mason might be losing the nights to Liam's sudden development of a girlfriend (whom, Mason knows, would have zero objections to an evening bingeing on action movies) but it's hard to feel bitter.

Scott takes off his jacket and enters, looking around Mason's house for the first time. His parents are at some conference for the weekend, despite their concerns about Mason's tired eyes and quieter demeanour, and Mason's heart feels like a church bell in his chest, ringing so loud that he's surprised Scott has asked him about it.

He has a boyfriend. Scott McCall shouldn't be getting him this riled up.

An hour later, things are comfortable and almost normal. Scott is watching the movie with wide-eyed adoration and Mason keeps on watching his increasing delight with a secondhand pleasure of his own. "What about Corey?" Scott asks, right in the middle of the Regenex pool scene.

"We... I guess it's a break technically." He and Corey had had their discussion yesterday; both of them too tired and unsure to be sure of anything. Corey has plans - to go with Tracy and Josh, to try and find their own way. They had kissed, and it had felt infinitely more like something ending, then something pausing.

"I'm sorry, dude." Scott says, and he squeezes Mason's bare forearm. "I hope you guys work it out."

"We might." Mason agrees and Scott beams a little around the crinkles of his eyes. Mason doesn't ever want to take that away from him; he can't tell the truth, that Corey had been his first love, and that it was over. Mason's spent two weeks knowing that.

Scott nods and turns back to the movie. "Jupiter's totally a Hufflepuff."

Mason grins back. "And Caine?" And that's how the rest of the evening goes; and even if Mason misses Liam a little bit, Scott is excellent company nonetheless.

 

* * *

 

A month later, Mason organises the first training camp. He doesn't call it a training camp, of course; nothing quite un-motivates a group of teenage werewolves, a banshee, a were-coyote, and a couple of regular humans, like the idea of forced socialisation and potentially hideous physical activity.

However, Mason is positive about this. He checks with Derek Hale, through Braeden, that he can use the Hale property, and coordinates with an enthusiastic Scott and Stiles about the idea.

"I think wrangling 'em'll be the hardest bit." Stiles says, examining the training sheet and general ideas sheet Mason rustled up in Microsoft Excel. He has the same sheet template waiting in Stiles' inbox. "We'll need food and blankets and maybe just a massive mountain ash ring to stop them all from wandering off like distracted puppies." At Scott's frown, he amends: "Cute, distracted puppies."

"I know, but I think it'll be nice for everyone. To... you know, bond." Mason bounces on his heels a little. He's feeling better, a little; his sleep disturbances are down to once a night, and he's even gone on patrol this week with Lydia and Malia. They'd spent the three hours discussing Chemistry homework (and letting Lydia rewrite it for them), and catching up on "Pretty Little Liars", with nary a supernatural incident in sight. He's tired of waiting, of reacting. Mason wants to do something.

"I like it." Scott says, considering the sheets in his hands. The leaves are changing above them, and Mason is distracted for a moment by them, but then is back to Scott. "It makes sense. We should have been doing this a while back, but..."

"We never had the time, Scotty. Too busy kicking ass and... I don't know," Stiles waves in a general 'and other stuff' way, "miscellania, I guess." Stiles and Scott nudge one another for a moment, Mason scuffing his sneaker against the ground, before Scott turns back to Mason.

"Thanks for this, Mason. I really mean it." Scott cups the back of Mason's neck with his hand, and a warm feeling settles itself like a burning coal into Mason's stomach.

_I'm fucked_ , Mason thinks.

 

* * *

 

 

All in all, the first pack bonding experience goes well. Or as well as Mason can reason. At the end of the day, there's one small fire and the first aid kit Mason insisted on bringing gets cracked open only twice for Stiles-related incidents.

As dusk rolls around, the large bonfire is crackling merrily away, and Mason has spent twenty minutes on his back, counting the stars he can see.

"Ursa Major. Ursa Minor. Cassiopeia." Lydia points out beside him. Her eyes are on her the skies, even as she threads threads of her long hair into strawberry blonde braids, twisting them up and around the curve of her skull to make a crown of hair. "Cepheus."

"How do you know all of these?"

"I've been auditing Astronomy classes at Berkeley since freshman year. I needed something to keep me occupied." Lydia smiles thoughtfully at Mason. "I'll get you on the list."

"I should never doubt your powers. Ever."

"Damn right you shouldn't."

Further over at the bonfire, the werewolves - and werecoyote - in the group are in various states of disarray, enjoying the pulsing energy coming from the half-moon. The ground underneath Mason's butt crunches when he shifts with the fallen autumn leaves. It's not cold enough yet for the scent and allergen free flannel blankets Mason procured or for curling up close to the bonfire, but there's a chill enough for Mason to draw his sleeves across his torso.

"Thank you." Lydia quirks an eyebrow at him. Mason stumbles on. He hasn't been able to say this yet. Now feels the right time. "For--for saving me."

"Don't be ridiculous." Lydia says, hands moving as she finishes her crown. "You're pack. Always. That means we don't let you go." There's a deep well of sadness pouring into her words, and Mason resists the urge to hug her because he trusts many things, the highest of which is that Lydia Martin, future MIT graduate and doctor of whatever disciplines she chooses, does not need anyone pitying her in the slightest degree.

"Guys." Lydia and Mason look up - a shadow looms at them from the darkness, until it smiles, revealing the two black bands encircling the upper arm in a tattoo. Scott. "We're gonna make s'mores."

"Fearsome monsters indeed." Mason says, and Scott grins as he tugs Mason and Lydia forward with a hand each towards the bonfire and the promise of toasted marshmallows.

Hours later it seems, everyone has descended into soft talking and snoozing, the sky a vaulted midnight blue above them, studded with hundreds of glowing stars. Liam has his head propped up on Mason's stomach, Hayden curled up against him like a warm comma.

"Hey." Mason looks up. He's debating whether or not to put his earbuds in - he doesn''t want to disrupt everyone, but he's gone from sleeping too much to bouts of insomnia - and play some Sabina Ddumba or Nabiha until he drifts off.

Scott is sat beside him, eyes warm and faintly red in the reflection of the bonfire. "Thank you so much for this."

"It was nothing, really."

"No." Scott insists, his hand on Mason's shoulder again. He feels warmer than the fire. "It wasn't nothing. You... it means a lot. Really. I've been wanting to do something like this since forever, and you... you made it happen."

Then he leans forward and presses his lips to Mason's, the barest pressure of warm lips and the taste of marshmallows on them. Mason responds, kissing back, because how could he not, and then the moment's over.

"'Night." Scott says, and curls up to sleep next to him, one hand braced against Stiles' ankle as he snores next to Malia.

Mason tries to sleep that night but is still awake by the time dawn, bright and sunshine-gold through the gaps in the woodland, washes over them.

 

* * *

 

 

"He what?" Liam says, and Mason pauses "The Division" on the XBox so that neither of them die. They're at Liam's, getting in some serious best-friend bonding time following homework and pizza. Mason's sleeping better now, more nights in his regular sleeping pattern. He still starts at the name 'Theo' and has dreams about the black clouds and glowing eyes of the Beast twice a week, but he's feeling stronger.

"It was just a weird moment." Mason admits. "We were talking and then we kissed. It was barely a kiss though, so - "

"Bull," Liam says. "He's never kissed me."

"Maybe I'm cuter than you."

Liam snorts good-naturedly.

"Whatever. Have you spoken to him about it since?"

Mason pauses.

"What is it you're always telling me? Communication." Liam sighs and leans over to snag one of the remaining slices of Domino's from the box by their feet. "He needs to know how you feel about it, otherwise you're going to be... I don't know, kissing combatants or something."

Mason opens his mouth, mainly to ask Liam how he knows a word like 'combatants' (which, admittedly, he might have gained from Tom Clancy video games), but shuts up instead, letting Liam fill his mouth with pepperoni and bacon, and mulls things over.

 

* * *

 

 

The next time Mason drops by the McCall house, prepared for anything with a tray of freshly made cookies and "Snowpiercer", Scott is nothing but normal to him. Grinning at him all the time, joking with him.

They even spend twenty minutes looking over a Word document Scott has open on his laptop for a draft proposal between the McCall Pack of Beacon Hills and the Fernandez Pack of southern Los Angeles (Derek is back in town with fresh links; Stiles and Malia amicably broke up, and Stiles has spent most nights at Derek's since), and Mason's trusty Excel spreadsheet about the progress of the pack.

"You kissed me." Mason blurts out, because he can't stand the silence any longer. They'd finished "Snowpiercer" and moved onto "Legally Blonde" because anyone who doesn't like Elle Woods is an actual Nemeton-worshipping monster, the tray of cookies demolished.

"I did." Scott nods, fingers playing with the hem of his shirt.

"I - you - why?" Mason's brain is trying desperately to push himself into full sentences, but right now, it's not possible.

"I wanted to. You're important to me."

"But Kira - "

"I know." Scott's hand is on his cheek and Mason can't help but lean into it. "But we left things open on our end. I'm not saying I don't still love her... but I want something for myself."

Mason flushes, with a steady rise of arousal, and an equally hot burst of indignation. "I am not your consolation prize, Scott. I stopped being anyone's second place a long time ago."

Scott's eyes widen with panic. "No, I know, I just..." He trails off. "I really like you. And I think you like me too."

And then he leans in, and kisses Mason.

Mason responds. He kisses Scott back, hands sliding up from waist to chest to throat and back, fingers looking to gain on a purchase on any bare skin. Scott groans, guttural in his throat, and his lips move from Mason's, to find Mason's throat, and Mason moans.

They make out heatedly for a good ten minutes before someone knocks at the door.

"Worst. Timing. Ever." Mason breathes out and Scott beams back, looking a little dopey and quite satisfied. His shirt is rucked up under his armpits, exposing the warm brown skin beneath and the firm muscles there. His own doing, Mason admits to himself.

Scott answers the door and Mason backpedals, because Kira is at the door. She looks good, her katana tucked into the fabric of her backpack, her hair longer, and her face more tanned. The desert has been good to her, in some ways.

"Hi, Scott. Mason." She says, smiling, and Scott smiles back at her. Mason's heart drops into his shoes, and he scrambles to bring everything togehter.

"I - I should go. Leave you to it. Bye Kira. Scott." Mason says, and Scott and Kira look confused, then worried, concern etched in their perfect brows. Mason shoves everything in his car, drives five minutes away, and then lets himself shake and cry because he's allowed to. He's allowed to be vulnerable this once.

 

* * *

 

 

Mason ignores Scott's eight missed phone calls and fourteen text messages for the rest of the weekend. He finishes his assignments, updates his spreadsheets, practises some of the moves Liam had been coaching him on, and ignores any attempt at contact from the rest of the Pack.

He might be stronger than he looks, but a broken heart still _hurts_ damnit.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Kira finds him in the library on the Wednesday after, and Mason is terrified. Kira is a badass, samurai-sword-wielding, life-saving electric kitsune who is approximately a hundred times cuter than Mason is and can defeat evil a million times better. Mason can barely throw a punch.

It doesn't matter that Scott has been trying to talk to him for two days, looking miserable and downcast, and that everyone else has been looking similar shades of that. It doesn't. At all.

Kira sits down beside him in the European History aisle, Steven Universe bobbles (Garnet and Pearl) curving her hair into two ponytails, and her eyes round and concerned.

"It's okay. I promise it's okay."

Mason is shaking a little. Words flood his mouth and spill out. "I - I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, it just happened. I didn't even mean to kiss Scott, it just - "

Kira's hands are on his shoulders, comforting, and she moves one hand to cup his chin to meet her eyes. "It's alright. We talked about this a while back. It's fine."

"It is?"

Kira nods, leaning back against the shelving and drawing her knees up to her chest. "We talked for a long time. We'd been... I don't know, drifting, for a long time. It's not that I don't still love him a lot. We just... we want different things and need different things." Her face becomes downcast and her voice small. "We're still friends right? I can't stand it if we're not friends, Mason."

Mason blinks in surprise, then blurts: "I kissed your boyfriend and you're worried that I won't be your friend anymore?"

Kira laughs and her small hand slips into his. "As long as you promise to be mine."

"Of course I will. Who else is going to talk to me about 'Scandal'?"

And just like that, everything's fine again.

 

* * *

 

 

"This is an actual first date. Like an actual date." Mason says, looking into the mirror. Behind him, on his unmade bed, Liam and Hayden are watching him dress and internally - and at this stage externally - freak out.

He's going on his first proper date with Scott McCall. Wow.

"We know. Also: blue shirt, not the gray." Liam suggests. "Makes your eyes pop."

Mason can't tell if Liam is being serious with him, but after a beat, he strips out of the gray shirt and into the ocean blue button down Hayden hands to him.

An hour later, he's standing outside Raynor's, a restaurant that falls between 'affordable' and 'cute' in a theoretical (or not so theoretical if Stiles has anything to do with it) Venn diagram of Beacon Hills eateries, waiting for Scott. He can hear the sounds of instrumental covers of Miles Davis standards playing over the soundtrack, and adjusts his shirt.

Scott arrives ten minutes late, looking heartbroken at the delay, and handsome as hell in a black long sleeved button down and pants that hug the curve of his ass obscenely. "I am so sorry."

"It's alright." Mason says, and then they're complimenting each other on their way into the restaurant.

They make it twenty minutes in, their Cokes in their glasses, talking about their classes, about the Wachowski sisters' filmography, and about Scott's friendship with Stiles, when the front of the restaurant promptly explodes in a shower of glass and sound.

Scott covers Mason protectively, as the diners and waitstaff scream and scatter from the blast. When Mason looks up, Scott's eyes are wildfire red. "Get them to safety."

Mason nods, then moves towards a cluster of patrons crouched down, terrified, by the entrance to the kitchen. "Guys, we have to go. Out through the back."

He shepherds them along down the corridor, the sous chef kicking down the fire exit to get people out, and then heads back to collect more people. Mason spots Scott, claws and fangs at the ready, and catches his eye briefly.

_Go_ , it says, and Mason does, hitting four of the numbers of his speed dial (4, Liam; 6, Lydia; 7, Kira; and 8, Stiles) to get the rest of his pack here ASAP.

 

* * *

 

 

Scott's mom answers the door a few hours later, still in her scrubs, and looking as tired and radiantly beautiful as she always does, whether battling demons or saving peoples' lives.

"Hi, Mason. Scott is upstairs. I can get him for you."

"Thanks, Mrs McCall." Mason offers her the bottle of wine he took from his parents' liquor cabinet before he left. "I heard you like reds."

Melissa considers the bottle of nero d'Avola in her hand and beams at him. "Stay forever, Mason."

Scott comes down the stairs five minutes later, after Melissa has interrogated him at the incident at the restaurant (which Stiles has attributed to a 'Nazi freaking werewolf, I swear to God'), and "How To Get Away With Murder", and headed up to bed.

He's in sleep pants and a long sleeved henley and looks so soft and tired that Mason's heart aches a little. "Hi. Sorry, I should have called first."

"No," Scott insists, eyes crinkling with the smile, "that's fine. You okay?"

"Yeah, I just... I figured that I like you. A lot. And that I don't need a fancy restaurant to feel that. So... I figured why not just relax? It's been working for us so far." Mason removes the rest of the items from his messenger bag: three bags of salted caramel popcorn and "10 Cloverfield Lane" on DVD.

Scott nods. "Sounds good. Just don't Stiles you got it before he did. He might cry."

Mason laughs and Scott pads into the kitchen to heat up the popcorn kernels. Thirty minutes later, Scott kisses him and Mason is laughing into his mouth as they make out, and everything feels like it's sliding into place.

 

* * *

 

 

Life goes on. Mason takes Scott's request and helps make the pack stronger. Bonds of steel strengthened so they can stretch without breaking, supporting one another.

Kira and Malia go on double dates with Derek and Stiles every few weeks, to the bowling, to the movies. Mason makes sure that he's on patrol for those nights, armed with an aluminium bat soaked in mountain ash and with a dozen of Stiles' charms built into it.

Mason brings Scott and Lydia to his yoga class; Derek joins them a month later. It helps a little, then it helps a lot. Liam keeps going to his therapist, to quell his anger issues, and Hayden and Mason wait for him outside sometimes, with coffee and conversation, ready to be the space he needs to breathe, to grow.

Scott takes Mason's virginity in his bedroom, with his parents out of town, and afterwards Mason touches one of the bite marks on his throat, touches Scott's claiming hand on his hip, sinks deep into warm skin and soft comforter. He stops panicking around the sight of glowing eyes.

The seniors amongst them graduate, and Mason makes sure to cheer the second loudest (first being Melissa) when Scott walks across the stage, 'UC Davis' atop his square cap. Lydia gives a brilliant speech as valedictorian, her gaze set to MIT and beyond. No one cries, but Mason suggests that Scott, Stiles, Malia, Kira, and Lydia head to the library, to say goodbye to Allison, while Mason and the others get ready for dinner. The fivesome return, eyes a little redder, but smiling, and Scott cups the back of Mason's neck like a brand.

And then, when everyone is gathered around in the Preserve at night, a campfire going, and drinks being shared, Mason thinks about his pack. Scott. Lydia. The Sheriff and Melissa. Stiles and Derek. Malia and Kira. Liam and Hayden. Tracy. Josh. Thinks about how much he cares about them.

Scott's arm rests along the line of Mason's shoulders, hand grazing the fresh ink there, the two black concentric circles on his upper arm, and Mason rests into his boyfriend's side as the stars gather above them.

And he realises, quite clearly and happily, that he's not had any nightmares for a long time now.

**Author's Note:**

> Notes:
> 
> The songs Mason listens to in the forest to try to sleep are "Ask Yourself" by Nabiha and "Not Too Young" by Sabina Ddduma, both excellent Scandinavian pop singers whom I highly recommend to you.
> 
> I picked University of California Davis for Scott because in my head he's a veternarian in training, and UC Davis has a great veterniary school. Lydia, of course, is headed for MIT, and then onto wherever she wants to go in the future. I could see Stiles going to Berkeley or rejecting conventional education entirely and going straight into law enforcement, while Malia could maybe do an anthropology course at UC San Diego or UCLA, and I think Kira might follow her girlfriend to do some kind of English or history degree at UCLA. I think they'd all choose state colleges to stay close to one another.
> 
> The quick change in relationships from Stiles/Malia and Scott/Kira to Scott/Mason, Kira/Malia, and Stiles/Derek, is wholly so I could focus on Scott/Mason this time around. I've written my fair share of Derek/Stiles in the past, so hopefully this is fine.


End file.
